AbstractsEarth & Environmental Science

The Ecology of the entrance to the Whangateau Harbour Northland New Zealand 1. General Introduction 1.1 Aims of this work. The broad object of this work has been to improve understanding of shallow water marine environments and their faunal associations. To this end, information has been integrated from a number of specific investigations which were: 1. To examine the benthic macrofauna associated with sedimentary deposits, in an area with steep environmental gradients and associated complexity of faunal distributions. 2. To identify and describe the major benthic marofaunal associations, using both classical ???intuitive" methods and more objective statistical methods employing computer techniques. 3. To investigate the hydrological and sedimentary features of the local environment, as a background to the faunal investigations. 4. To relate the distribution of the fauna and associations ;a selected environmental parameters, with particular reference to the grain-size characteristics of the sediments. 5. To relate the faunal associations to similar associations elsewhere in New Zealand and overseas. 6. To investigate the relationships between the living fauna and the dead remains of organisms found in the sediments, with the view to providing information which may be usefull to paleaecologists. 7. To try to portray certain aspects of the underwater environment difficult to appreciate by means other than diving.